The Demographics of Guilds

In this article, we'll take a look at different demographic aspects of being in a guild. What percentage of players have a strong affiliation with a guild? How did players come to join their guild? Did the guild migrate from a previous game? And much more.

Let's start with the basics. 89% of respondents said that at least one of their characters belonged to a guild. There were no age or gender differences in this percentage. 25% of these players belonged to more than one guild. Female players were more likely than male players to belong to more than one guild (32% vs. 22%). There was no age difference in this percentage. So the majority of players who belong to a guild only belong to one guild.

Thus, it's not surprising that the majority of respondents (87%) were able to identify one guild that they had a strong affiliation with. For the remaining data, respondents who could identify a strongly affiliated guild were asked to use that guild as the reference. For the respondents who could not, they were asked to use the most recent guild they joined as the reference.

Players were most likely (23%) to be in guilds that they themselves created (either alone or together with other players). Here are brief explanations of the different categories:

RL Friend: Someone the player knew in RL invited the player into their guild.Asked to Join: The player saw an ad in general chat or an online forum and asked to join the guild.Online Friend: Someone the player knew from online invited the player into their guild.Invited after Interaction: The player was invited to join after grouping with, chatting with, or interacting with a member of the guild.Random Invite: The player was asked to join the guild with no previous interactions with members of the guild.Split / Merger: The player was in a previous guild that splintered into this current guild or was in an old guild that merged with another guild to create the current guild.